With this nuclear stockpile we have the power to eliminate the human race Joseph Rotblat CBE

Click her for January 2010 Newsletter

MAIDENHEAD AND COOKHAM CND

January 2010

Dear members 

A Happy New Year to everyone. We hope you all had a peaceful Christmas and a good break from whatever you normally do! Our only visible activity since our last newsletter was our exhibition in Maidenhead Library.  We thought it looked quite effective, but unfortunately we had no feedback, so don’t know if anyone else felt the same. Did any of you see it?  We also wrote to West Berkshire Council against planning permission for further developments at Aldermaston.  Related to this we will have a representative from the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp(aign) coming to Southern Region’s AGM on 6^th March in Maidenhead  They will talk to us about developments at Aldermaston, what the Peace Camp women actually do and what we could do to help.  This year we also hope to have a concert in Lea Barn in aid of CND. 

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

If you would like to join Maidenhead & Cookham CND 

Annual Subscription Waged: £5 Unwaged: £3.00 (Donations welcome)

Click here for membership form

Also any comments of offers of help you may like to give. 

Aims and Objectives

CND campaigns and works for the worldwide outlawing and elimination of nuclear weapons.  

The World Court has stated that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegal.  The only possible exception being if a country's existence is threatened.

CND campaigns against the arms trade.

CND supports greater openness regarding nuclear arms and power.

A Little Bit of History

The first Aldermaston March was planned at a meeting in Cookham in 1957 to take place at Easter 1958.  On this occasion the march was lead by Donald Soper who, with John Berger, addressed the marchers and the public at the old Maidenhead Town Hall.

Present Actions

To press governments to adhere to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.  This means not allowing Fylingdales and Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, both British Listening Centres, to be used for phone tapping by the USA and as part of their defence shield.

Keeping a watchful eye on the BNFL new management at Aldermaston, where there have been past infringement of rules regarding the disposal of nuclear waste into the Thames and other waters.

We are at the beginning of a United Nations Decade to promote the culture of peace. 

The National Peace Council has produced a Schools Teaching Pack which stresses the importance of teaching children to adopt the following precepts: 

RESPECT, CONFLICT RESOLUTION, CELEBRATING DIFFERENCES, PARTICIPATION, SHARING RESOURCES, REJECTING VIOLENCE. For information phone 020 7609 6999 or E mail: npc@gn.ape.org 

In November 2000 50 delegates from Pakistan attended a World Peace Convention in India to look at how the world could be made safer and in particular how the relations between Pakistan and India could be improved - a very positive step towards peace. 

Maidenhead & Cookham CND group includes both pacifists and those who lived through and fought for peace in the second world war. We campaign not only for a reduction in nuclear weapons world wide, and an end to nuclear tests and to development of new nuclear missiles, but also for a reduction in the general arms trade which fuels conflict worldwide. 
The eminent scientist and nun Rosalie Bertell who wrote the 1980 classic No Immediate Danger, made the point recently, in an interview with the Times, that more damage to the environment is done by the military than by car exhausts and deodorants. She said " We have the ability to choose life. We will never be of one mind but we will have to break the habit of killing each other when we disagree." 

In the words of ex-President Carter "We need to wage peace" and for evil to triumph in the words attributed to Burke "For evil to triumph it requires only that good men do nothing." 

Newspapar Articles: The Guardian - Kosovo troops tested for cancer from uranium

Did you know. . .

A British nuclear-powered Trident submarine is out on patrol, submerged, ready, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The United States has between eleven and fifteen nuclear-missile firing submarines out on patrol, France has two and the Russians one or more.

All these submarines are programmed to fire their computer-targeted missiles on receiving a simple radio signal.

This is today’s reality. Not some future threat. Not some fantasy computer game.

You can help stop this lunacy.

For more information on Maidenhead and Cookham CND phone 01628 635339

Movement for  the Abolition of War

International  Peace  Bureau

Haig  Appeal  for Peace

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmamament